The fifth season of the European Poker Tour kicked off on Wednesday, as the EPT Barcelona event got underway.

292 players participated in Day 1A of the event on Wednesday, which means that there could be in excess of 600 players registered when all is said and done. This would make the field approximately 10% larger than last year, which would be a testament to the rapid international growth of poker.

After Day 1A of the event, the chipleader is Michael Murra. According to the PokerStars blog, Murra finished the day with approximately 78,000 in chips. Nichlas Mattson was in second place with a stack of 72,000, and Ramzi Jelassi was in third place with 62,800. There are approximately 110 players remaining after the first day of play.

Other notable names still alive after Day 1A include Robert Mizrachi, Isaac Haxton, Mark Teltscher, Danny Ryan, Chad Brown and Alexander Kravchenko.

A number of big names will play on Day 1B, including Daniel "KidPoker" Negreanu, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier and Gavin "GavinGriffin" Griffin.

European Poker Tour field sizes continue to swell with each passing year. This is due to the heavy promotion of EPT events by Pokerstars, the attractive locales of many of the events, and the ever-growing international player base. I would expect to see large fields all season long.

Sander Lylloff is the defending champion, having taken down the tournament last year for 1.17 million Euros. First place in this year's event is expected to top 1.3 million Euros.